Sheboygan beekeeping interest rises as hives fall

Kurt Petersen’s bees built honeycombs in an unstructured feeder frame. He said the bees do not follow any specific pattern when this happens and the combs usually end up going "six ways from Sunday."(Photo: Rachael Lallensack/Sheboygan Press Media)Buy Photo

In a roundabout way, honeybee hive loss has caused some gains in the beekeeping community.

Though colony collapse disorder, a syndrome that clears a beehive of its adult bees, is still causing extreme hive loss around the world, publicity surrounding the issue has prompted some individuals to become beekeepers.

For commercial beekeepers like Garry Oreskovic, a member of the Sheboygan County Beekeepers Association, new customers come his way with hopes to help restore honeybee population. Oreskovic sells queens, package bees and nucleus colonies, which are small, ready-to-use colonies.

“A lot of people are interested in saving bees and that contributes to an increase in new beekeepers,” Oreskovic said.

Kurt Petersen, also a member of the SCBA, and Jason Allard, Manitowoc County Beekeepers Association president, both reported increases in membership this year. Petersen noted an almost 20 percent addition to the 80-member group.

The Manitowoc association had eight new families join the group recently, which is more than usual, Allard said.

“There has been an uptick in people wanting to keep bees but it’s still difficult to keep hives alive,” Allard said.

The number of commercially owned honeybee hives have declined steadily in the U.S. since the mid-1900s, with a drop from 6 million to 2.5 million, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Bees cluster around field brood cells, on the left, where young bees develop in the pupae stage. Darker areas on the right are honey cells.(Photo: Rachael Lallensack/Sheboygan Press Media)

Each factor is linked to the others and damage amplifies when factors combine.

Or as Oreskovic said: “The bees can overcome one or two problems but they can’t overcome, say, 10 problems. When you combine of all these problems, you get one big problem, and that’s called death.”

Put simply, vast plots of land where honeybees once pollinated wildflowers and other plants and trees are now used to grow corn, alfalfa and soybeans over vast acreages, offering little to no nutritional value for bees.

Claudio Gratton, a University of Wisconsin-Madison entomologist, said monocrop agriculture leaves honeybees with a lack of food diversity.

“Imagine if you and I ate at McDonald’s every day. There’s not a lot of variety there. We probably wouldn’t feel very good, we’re not filling all of our nutritional needs,” Gratton said.

On top of that, those crops are often treated with chemical pesticides, insecticides or fungicides that are harmful to bees. If herbicides are applied to wild growth in farm fields, that basically kills off any remaining food sources bees could find in the area.

Poor nutrition and prolonged exposure to chemicals weakens the honeybee’s immune system, leaving them susceptible to mites and pests that carry pathogens and diseases, experts say.

“Large-scale agriculture creates somewhat of a barren landscape for the bees. Back in the old days, farms were smaller more diversified and multicropped with gardens,” Petersen said. “Over time, that’s just slowly changed to the big farms and monocrops.”

The state has 9 million acres of cropland, according to the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection. Bees have a normal radius of about 3 miles, so when commercial beekeepers like Oreskovic have 6,000 hives to care for, finding a threat-free place to put their hives isn’t easy.

“It’s hard to find areas that are going to be safe for your bees,” Oreskovic said.

What can be done?

Because each of the main factors associated with colony collapse disorder are so interconnected, it makes the issue hard to confront.

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Kurt Petersen said he has seen a decline in his bees' honey production.(Photo: Rachael Lallensack/Sheboygan Press Media)

“It’s certainly helpful for people to plant things that are a good sources of nectar for honeybees. That certainly is a start to get rid of this problem,” Oreskovic said. “Would that solve the problems with the mites? No, that wouldn’t solve any of the problems with mites or viruses that bees have encountered. Like I said, it’s a bunch of little problems that equate the big problem.”

National attention

And problems for bees are problems for people too, so much so that it attracted national attention last year.

The White House issued a presidential memorandum to create a federal strategy to promote the health of honeybees and other pollinators. The memo cites figures that show honeybee pollination alone contributes $15 billion in value to agricultural crops in the United States.

When, according to the memo, 35 percent of global food production relies on threatened animal pollinators, things get serious.

Or as a sticker depicting an animated honeybee shown on the Sheboygan County Beekeepers’ Associations website put it, “If we die, we’re taking you with us.”

Petersen’s wife, Kathy, who runs the site, adds, “And if you think about it, if something happens to bees we are going to be in big trouble.”